Updates from Njabini: the Fox family visits the workshop

David handing over education books

The computer donated by David's Family

Njabini wool spinning has continued to play a very important role in the conservation of the Kinangop Highland Grasslands. This could have not been possible without help from foreign donors from Italy and the UK. Outstanding among them is Mr David Fox and his family who have made huge and frequent contributions towards addressing the challenges at our Workshop. In July this year, the Fox family visited Kinangop together with Luca. During their visit, they met with the Njabini workshop, where they donated a computer, two digital cameras and a pair of binoculars. They later visited the Kinangop Nature Reserve and the Eco-resource Center run by the Friends of Kinangop Plateau Association. Mugumo-ini Primary School was also visited as a representative of the Education programme. (Post written by  the Njabini Woolspinning Group)

 

Three-months report (Feb-Apr 2010) from Njabini

Dear everybody – Sammy Bakari just sent us this update on the activities of the Njabini woolspinning workshop, one of the projects that we are supporting.
As you know, the Njabini workshop is an eco-friendly small business that aims to save the habitat of Sharpe’s Longclaw by creating a market for the wool produced by the sheep grazing in the highland grasslands of Kenya – the only habitat where Sharpe’s Longclaw lives.
As part of our agreement with Njabini, every third month Sammy sends to us updates on the development of the activities of the workshop. This is the third update, covering the period from February to April 2010.
I hope you will enjoy reading Sammy’s report – and I also hope you will feel proud of our good results. Think that for each 100 kg of wool that the workshop buys, one hectare of grassland is preserved, and one hectare of grassland is the home to two pairs of Sharpe’s Longclaw!

All the best, Luca

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The Njabini woolspinning workshop: Three months update February to April 2010

By Samuel Bakari

INTRODUCTION
The Njabini Wool Spinning workshop has continued to grow. The growth has continued to economically empower the youths working in the workshop as well the sheep farmers.
However challenges has persistently occurred one after the other.

WORKING WITH THE FARMERS
After a long period of prolonged drought, across most of the country, for the whole of 2009, Kenya has received heavy rains as from November last year to now. This has been a blessing to all of us. However, due to the rain, shearing has not been possible. Fortunately, this did not affect our supply of wool as we had stored enough wool to take us through the hard times. Now many sheep are ready for shearing and are waiting for rains to subside. We are looking forward to that as our fleece stock is running down.

PRODUCTION
Spinning
Spinning underlines the quality and the type of product. This is dictated by the skill of the spinner, the quality of wool and to a large extent the type of spinning wheels and carders in use. Spinning and carding equipment has always been a challenge as the wheels used at the workshop are of low quality and are not very efficient as compared to professional equipment. We have continued to learn new spinning techniques and tricks from Janice who have everyday continued to come with new ideas [LUCA’S NOTE: JANICE IS THE AMERICAN FIBER ARTIST WHO HAS BEEN WORKING WITH US SINCE LAST YEAR AND IS TEACHING TO NJABINI NEW WEAVING AND SPINNING TECHNIQUES TO IMPROVE THEIR PRODUCTS]. Janice has given us a lot of literature materials for reference including magazines. This has gone a long way in motivating the spinners and providing new ideas.
We have been lucky to receive two new super spinning wheels! One we received from friends through Janice and the other was Janice’s, who was with us for a period, this was very kind of she as she uses and she let us have it for more than four months. The wheels have given us another perspective and we have been able produce a wide range of fine yarns. For the first months of this year we have been able to supply wool yarn to shops in Naivasha. Unfortunately, most of the other shops have not been able to buy yarns due to the economic crisis that is hitting Kenya. This has affected our income from sale of yarns, which has continued to be one of the challenges. On the other hand end user products has improved.

Photo below: Margaret and Regina spinning using the new spinning wheels-Regina is with Janice’s wheel. Emma, in the front, is using a Kenya-made wheel.

Weaving
Rug weaving has continued to improve in design, texture and colour. Janice has relentlessly taught us new techniques and design, she has also bought us very informative books for reference. Our big loom has been repaired, thanks to Janice’s skills, and it is now operational. This has moved us to greater heights in weaving. New product has hit the market and is doing well so far, woven scarves. This has proved to be a good line and cuts across a broad class of buyers including even the local market, which is not easy with the rugs. The combination is one of our strengths that we have lately achieved.



MARKETING AND SALES
Marketing is one of the areas that we have not been to achieve to our best; due to a number of challenges that we have not been able to overcome. Although we have been able to improve the quality of our products, we realise the need to improve also on our capacity of production and accumulate working capital. We have been in many cases forced to sell yarn instead of weaving it into products such as scarves or rugs that could fetch a higher price on the market. This is because selling of rugs at current set up takes relatively long time to as compared to yarns, which are in most cases easy to sell. However, yarn processed to a final product fetches more money due to the value added and involves more people thereby creating more employment. The challenge now is to pay the labour force, as they have to wait until the product is sold, thereby affecting the production and taking of more weavers. We are building on savings to tackle this such that the weavers can be paid timely even if the products they have woven is not sold. This is taking long however.
Sales of rugs has gone up, we attracted orders from several customers. We also benefited from another sale bazaar at the US embassy where we sold seven knitted scarves and five rugs. We also introduced the woven scarves and all the woven scarves that we had sold out immediately though we had only five as we had just learned how to weave them from Janice and this was the first lot.
We have continued to make one-on-one, marketing to potential buyers. The contacts from Goodie, Cheli and Peacock and African Pro-poor Tourism Development Center (APTDC) are still followed. We are looking for a potential order from APTDC while a recent visit to Cheli and Peackock shows hope of potential purchase.
We are following a contact for sale of scarves and we are meeting the first potential long time buyer in two weeks time. We are also moving around to potential clients.
We managed to participate to Roslyn’s Spring Fling on 17th April where we were able to interact with new people and got some contacts.

APPRECIATION
A lot of thanks go to all you who have contributed and have been always concerned with the welfare of the Njabini Wool Spinning Workshop as a tool for conservation of the Kinangop Grasslands. Particularly David Fox for your generous support, Charlie Moores and Luca Borghesio for your continued devotion. We cannot fail to thank Janice Knausenberger for her motivation throughout the time we have been in contact.

Update on the activities of the Njabini woolspinning workshop (01 November 2009 to 31 Jan 2010)

NOTE BY LUCA: WE ARE HELPING THE NJABINI WOOLSPINNING WORKSHOP AS PART OF OUR 2009 ACTIVITIES. WE WILL CONTINUE OUR SUPPORT TO NJABINI ALSO IN 2010.
TO READ MORE ABOUT NJABINI AND HOW IT HELPS PRESERVING ENDANGERED BIRDS AND HABITATS CLICK HERE (SORRY, IT'S IN ITALIAN...)
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By Sammy Bakari, one of Njabini's workers

This period marks the end of the year 2009 and the beginning of 2010. This has been a very difficult year for every one in Kenya due to the prolonged drought. This drought heavily affected the farmers and all the people of Kenya, including here in Njabini and on the Kinagop plateau, which is a traditional agricultural and pastoral area. Up to now, the rains have not yet resumed and the situation is getting very bad for everybody, even though we all hope that good rains will eventually resume in March, with the next rain season. [LUCA’S NOTE – YES THE RAIN EVENTUALLY RESUMED IN MARCH ]


But on the bright side, despite the drought, over the last three months, spinning and weaving have undergone a tremendous improvement here at our workshop in Njabini.
Our spinners – Emma, Margaret, Regina and the others - have been able to improve the speed, quality and at the same enjoy spinning. Washing the wool before working on it is one of the big tricks that the Njabini is practicing, this is after getting a wonderful training session with Janice who has been visiting us regularly in these last months, and her experience and teaching has brought much improvement to our work! Our workshop now produces an increasing amount of fine wool yarn that comes in many bright colours and that we sell as it is to other workshops, or we weave or knit it into our own products.


This period has also seen us learn a number of things regarding the market requirements, because we now produce a range of very good products, but we still are not able to sell them to our customers. In mid-November, Janice introduced us to the American community here in Nairobi, and we were allowed to display a sample of our new colourful rugs. Over a period of two weeks, more than half of them were sold. This was the first mega sale that the Njabini workshop experienced! It gave us an opportunity to understand what the market needs. We are now adjusting to the market taste.


We also continued to explore other outlets. We have advanced our contact with Goodie, a Nairobi shop where we have our products on display. This has attracted one order from the shop. Other contacts have been established and the most promising is with the African Pro-poor Tourism Development Centre. This is a recent contact and we are pursuing to see if we can make a deal with them. Our wall hangings are also displayed in the shop at the National Museums of Kenya at Nairobi.

Over the same period, our workshop enjoyed media coverage from the Kenya National Broadcast Television. These involved visiting the Nature reserve and some of the sheep farmers that we work with.

News from Njabini!

As you know, one of the activities we are involved in is funding Sammy Bakari and the Njabini woolspinning workshop on the Kinangop Plateau of Kenya.

To read why the Kinangop plateau is so important for the conservation of the disgraced Sharpe’s Longclaw bird, you can read this previous post of mine. And to understand how the Njabini woolspinning workshop is helping save the Longclaw, while as well creating workplaces and lovely eco-friendly wool products, please see here.

In November, Sammy Bakari sent me this report on the activities that he and the Njabini workshop have been carrying out in the last three months. Here is Sammy’s report – sorry for posting it so late... but life has been so hectic for me in the last months (you all know why, uh?).

By the way, happy new year's greetings from your friend - Dr Liv!

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THREE MONTHS REPORT (August-October 2009) - BY SAMMY BAKARI.

The Njabini Wool Spinning and Weaving Workshop is one of the activities carried out by the Friends of Kinangop Plateau to reduce pressure on the Kinangop Highland Grasslands, one Kenya’s most important bird areas, which is the stronghold of the Sharpe’s Longclaw, a bird highly threatened by human activities. By buying wool from local producers, our workshop encourages livestock farming that is favorable to the conservation of the grasslands, the only place where Sharpe’s Longclaw can live.

In previous years, our workshop has been mainly selling unprocessed yarns to other workshops in major towns. However, we realize that selling woven products instead of raw yarns could fetch more money and therefore help expand the size of our activity. However, product quality and marketing have been a big problem for us, and have severely limited our work. Fortunately, thanks to the support that we are receiving from you, these problems are being addressed. When we met Luca in 2007, the quality of our products was low, but thanks to the support that Luca, Charlie, David, the 10,000 birds blog and all the other donors in Italy are giving to us, we have been encouraged and we are improving at all levels!

Since September 2009, we are also very much privileged to have a renowned weaver, Janice Knausberger, who is working with us and doing all that she can to help us improve our quality through training of new tricks and designs. As a result of Janice’s training we have started washing our wool before carding which is really helping improve the fineness of the yarn, which is the major factor of good quality product. We have also learned a new edge finishing technique, which is not practiced by any other weavers in Kenya, making our products unique.

Janice has also donated a drum carder to the workshop. With that, we are now producing a stock of high quality products ready to be shown to potential customers.

During these three months, we have been able to buy wool from farmers who have big flocks of sheep and have left aside pasture for the sheep which are as well the habitat for the Sharpe’s Longclaw and other grassland birds. Due to increased motivation and people knowing about the workshop, we have also recorded the highest sales of products for several months.

In these three months, we took part in two exhibitions, the 8th AGOA exhibition at the Kenya International Conference Center, and the Nature Fair organized by Nature Kenya. We also took part in the Farmers’ Field Day organized by the Ministries of Agriculture and Livestock in the Njabini Agricultural Training Center.

I can’t fail to thank all those who have helped in cash and kind. Lots of thanks go to the 10000 birds blog team, and to the Italian donors that have been brought in by Luca. Mr. David Fox has been very generous to us and we really pass our gratitude to him. Janice Knausberger has taken her time to come to our the workshop and teach us the new tricks that are working magic to our products.

Salviamo l'uccellino Zampagrossa! Con il laboratorio di tessitura della lana di Njabini

Dunque, si diceva in uno dei post precedenti che per dare una mano allo Sventurato Uccellino Zampagrossa ci sono varie idee che bollono nel pentolone. Questa è una delle più interessanti a cui sto lavorando con due organizzazioni ambientaliste Kenyane (Nature Kenya ed i Friends of Kinangop Plateau), ed il blog 10,000 Birds che collabora alla raccolta dei fondi.

Njabini, nel mezzo dell’altopiano di Kinangop, circa 60 km a nord di Nairobi, è una delle ultime roccaforti dello Sventurato. Trent’anni fa la zona era una sola immensa prateria alpina, ma in breve tempo è stata quasi completamente trasformata in campi di cavoli, che nella zona purtroppo crescono piuttosto bene.

Dato che nell’altopiano di Kinangop il territorio è interamente di suddiviso in migliaia di piccoli appezzamenti di proprietà di privati agricoltori, è evidente che per proteggere Zampagrossa occorre convincere i proprietari dei terreni a non convertirli in campi di cavoli, ossia bisogna proporgli un’alternativa di uso che sia economicamente valida e che salvi non capre e cavoli (non sia mai!) ma bensì pecore e Zampagrossa. Sono infatti proprio le pecore che stanno al centro di questa idea.

Le pecore sono animali pascolatori, e dunque vivono molto bene nelle praterie naturali. Fino a 20-30 anni fa infatti l’altopiano di Kinangop era quasi esclusivamente usato come pascolo per pecore e bovini. Le pecore venivano tosate e la lana venduta sul mercato. Purtroppo negli anni recenti il mercato della lana in Kenya è crollato a causa dell’invasione di prodotti di bassa qualità ma estremamamente economici provenienti dai mercati asiatici. Le pecore stanno quindi sparendo, e con loro i pascoli – che appunto ora vengono arati e coltivati nel tentativo di ottenere un maggiore profitto (tentativo abbastanza vano perché a quanto pare negli ultimi tempi è crollato anche il mercato dei cavoli).

L’idea del Laboratorio della Lana di Njabini è quella di comprare la lana di Kinangop pagandola un prezzo più alto di quello del mercato, e trasformarla in prodotti (filati colorati, borse, tappetini, indumenti) che possono essere commerciati con un margine di profitto interessante, in particolare vendendoli ai turisti stranieri. In questo modo, i proprietari dei terreni ricevono un incentivo economico a mantenere le proprie greggi, le praterie dove le pecore pascolano e soprattutto l’habitat naturale dello Sventurato Uccellino.

Il Laboratorio – nato da un’idea di Nature Kenya e dei Friends of Kinangop - ha iniziato le proprie attività nel 2005 ed al momento impiega una decina di persone, di cui tre a tempo pieno, le altre part-time (o meglio, quando c’è lavoro). La maggior parte dei lavoratori del laboratorio sono donne sposate e con prole.

Personalmente, credo che questa sia un’idea semplice e geniale. Commercio equo e solidale, prodotti naturali, salvaguardia di specie minacciate, formazione professionale, lavoro per fascie sociali svantaggiate – c’è tutto!

Purtroppo però c’è un problemino che rischia di mandare tutto all’aria: i prodotti del laboratorio stentano a trovare un mercato, per due ragioni principali. Da una parte i prodotti sono, diciamo così, un po’ rozzi, e non è che puoi andare nei più eleganti negozi di Nairobi a vendere tappetini spelacchiati e guanti mal cuciti, in quei negozi occorre avere roba di qualità. Dall’altra i lavoratori di Njabini come venditori sono una frana, il che peraltro è piuttosto logico perché se per tutta la vita hai coltivato cavoli e pascolato pecore, non è che da un giorno all’altro puoi diventare un piazzista fenomenale, noh? A questa situazione si aggiunge la crisi economica mondiale, che in Kenya sta mordendo peggio che in Italia (figuratevi un po’ che cosa significa!).

Occorre dunque dare una mano alla gente di Njabini, perché qui siamo sull’orlo del naufragio.

E veniamo al dunque: le mie proposte per correre in soccorso al Laboratorio di Njabini sono due:

1) MIGLIORARE LA QUALITA’ - occorre fornire ai tessitori di Njabini una formazione professionale specifica. Io di tessitura e filatura non so nulla e non posso insegnare niente, ma ho individuato una persona che lo può fare. Si chiama Janice, è un’Americana che vive in Kenya ed è un’artista della tessitura (cliccando qui potete vedere il suo sito). Janice ha incontrato la gente di Njabini insieme a me, e si è resa disponibile ad insegnare loro le tecniche necessarie per migliorare la qualità dei prodotti. La proposta che faccio è dunque di pagare a Janice dei rimborsi spese (600 Euro in tutto) che le permetteranno di andare a Njabini in media due volte al mese per sei mesi a tenere delle lezioni di filatura, colorazione della lana, tessitura, creazione di disegni e rifinitura dei prodotti
2) MARKETING PIU’ AGGRESSIVO – occorre una persona che si occupi a tempo pieno di smerciare i prodotti sul mercato. Per questo ruolo ho pensato a Sammy Bakari – un nome ben noto perché ha già ricevuto borse di studio da noi negli anni passati. Sammy è uno dei miei migliori assistenti di ricerca, vive a Kinangop, e conosce molto bene il laboratorio di Njabini, perché sua moglie Margaret ci lavora. Proporrei di pagare a Sammy un’altra borsa di studio (100 euro al mese per un anno = 1200 euro), con l’obiettivo preciso di occuparsi dello smercio dei prodotti, battendo in maniera sistematica tutti i possibili sbocchi commerciali (alberghi, negozi, centri commerciali, Musei, sedi di organizzazioni non governative, ingressi dei Parchi Nazionali). Il lavoro di Sammy, come al solito, sarà seguito personalmente da me – che per l’occasione mi trasformerò da Naturalista & Esploratore a Direttore Commerciale, non vedo l’ora!

TOTALE PROPOSTA 2009 PER IL LABORATORIO LANA: 1200+600 = 1800 EURO